Reading the 20th Century discussion

It's that time again RTTC'ers....


For our November 2024 group read we invite you to nominate anything written in the twentieth century century. Yes, it's wild card month once again so the choice is yours.

Please supply the title, author, a brief synopsis, and anything else you'd like to mention about the book, and why you think it might make a good book to discuss.

Happy nominating

And my nomination is....


The New York Trilogy (1987)

by

Paul Auster


When Paul Auster died back in April I noticed this trilogy came in for a lot of praise. I'd love to read and discuss it with this group.

More about The New York Trilogy (1987)...

The New York Trilogy is a series of novels by American writer Paul Auster. Originally published sequentially as City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986), it has since been collected into a single volume. The Trilogy is a postmodern interpretation of detective and mystery fiction, exploring various philosophical themes.

Despite being three books the total pages in the Faber & Faber paperback edition is 314 pages - so a modest size and presumably pretty quick to get through.

Interesting choice, Nigey - I haven't read Auster.

I'm dithering, as usual. Thinking about Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz, or Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac. Will do some investigating before firming up my choice.

I will nominate Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor

A brief encounter in wartime Ireland - the memory of which lasts a lifetime

In a small town in Ireland middle-aged Harry looks back on his wartime adolescence when he fetched and carried for the beautiful young Englishwoman who had taken over the big stone house with her much older German husband. But Frau Messinger's health is failing, and her husband decides to build a cinema in the town to honour her. Harry will work in it; one day he will own it; and he will always remain captive to the memory of the beguiling young woman who arrived suddenly from abroad and lit up his drab provincial life.

William Trevor's gift of understanding the poignancy in apparently small lives is beautifully realized in this short novel.

Published 1987. Only 112 pages, so a novella really.

Nigeyb wrote: "And my nomination is....

The New York Trilogy (1987)
by Paul Auster


When Paul Auster died back in April I noticed this trilogy came in for a lo..."

Quite excited about this one. It’s on my Guardian TBR.

I've never read it either. This could be the time!

Thanks all


Great nomination Susan

Looking forward to what you decide RC

And other nominations too

Ok, I'm nominating Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac:

A very unique cat - a French Canadian Hinayana Buddhist Beat Catholic savant' Allen Ginsberg

Though publishers stopped Maggie Cassidy's Jack Duluoz and On the Road's Sal Paradise from sharing the same name, Kerouac meant the books to be two parts of the same life. While On the Road made Paradise (and Kerouac) a hero for generations to come of the disaffected and restless, Maggie Cassidy is an affectionate portrait of the teenager that made the man - of friendship and first love growing up in a New England mill town. Duluoz is a high school athletics and football star who meets Maggie Cassidy and begins a devoted, inconstant, tender adolescent love affair.

It is one of the most sustained, poetic pieces of Kerouac's 'spontaneous prose'.

It sounds an interesting and unexpected companion piece to his On the Road, which led to some good discussions on here, and I've been meaning to read more Kerouac.

I thoroughly enjoyed our read and discussion of OTR so would be interested in this book which sounds an interesting companion read

Thanks RC

So ... i'm going to nominate Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans. Published in 1930 ,

" He captured the Welsh as Flann O'Brien did the Irish - with an uncanny ear for dialect , fierce wit and a vigorous originality ".


Caradoc Evans (1878-1945) was a journalist, story-writer, playwright, and novelist. He became the most reviled man in Wales after My People, a collection of stories about life in rural west Wales, was published in 1915. He is now regarded as one of the outstanding narrative and satirical writers of his country, and is called “the Zola of the Valleys.”

When Caradoc Evans’s novel Nothing to Pay appeared in 1930, it met with much admiration and also much resistance. His ruthless exposure of the Nonconformist establishment undermined the commonly held view that the Welsh were a pastoral, God-fearing people.

As Jeremy Brooks put it The Independent, “What the Welsh could not forgive was that they recognized themselves only too clearly in Evans’s satirical portraits.” But Dylan Thomas praised Evans’s work relentlessly, and H.G. Wells said in a lecture: “There was one, who is too little esteemed, who has done the thing [of telling about the trade shops] with a certain brutal thoroughness, and he tells a great deal of truth. That is Caradoc Evans in his book Nothing to Pay.” (In America, H.L. Mencken saw in Evans the fundamentalists of the South laid bare, and offered one hundred free copies of his story collection to the local YMCA.) Nothing to Pay relates the story of Amos Morgan, an ambitious draper from Cardiganshire who works his way up to London through the shop trade. Largely autobiographical, this novel was admired by the Welsh literati and has since become a classic of Welsh literature, not only for its scathing satire, but for its brilliant linguistic inventiveness and poetic style.

I'm interested in exploring the world of trade and retail ( often unseen and poorly paid work) and wonder whether this novel will have any echoes in the present day world of service. Also there's the hypocrisy of performative faith to explore ( the public persona vs the private) which speaks to considerations of presentations of the self on social media .

Another great set of nominations this month.

I looked into a couple of ideas but so far they haven't measured up. I haven't given up yet.

Great choice Hester


Ben, please keep us posted with your research

Has this group read Ann Quin before? I've been trying to think of 20th century British writers that might appeal here and but haven't been read as a group before.

Hester wrote:


"i'm going to nominate Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans"

Only available second hand in physical format - a few c£3 copies on eBay. For some reason the Amazon copies are closer to £15 so avoid that if you are buying

Also not available through the London libraries or Open Library.

by coincidence I saw all Ann Quin's novels at a bookshop in London at the weekend . I have read Three but none other ....would be up for a buddy read of Berg at some point ,

I'm going to nominate one of two books I found in my physical to-read pile.

The book is A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. Not a cheery book, but very highly rated when it was published.

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. The anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject--the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.

It's readily available in the Internet Archive, although strangely not in the Open Library. (I'll be happy to provide a link if anyone needs help finding it.)

Sorry for speaking too soon, Hester. Nothing to Pay IS available, but not on Open Library. Just on the Internet Archive.

David wrote:


"Has this group read Ann Quin before? I've been trying to think of 20th century British writers that might appeal here and but haven't been read as a group before."

We have a dedicated Ann Quin thread here....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I was really excited to read her work but after reading Berg my enthusiasm diminished

Please provide the link, Ben. Thanks.


Ben wrote: "I'm going to nominate one of two books I found in my physical to-read pile.

The book is A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. Not a cheery book, but very highly rated when it was publishe..."

https://archive.org/search?query=woma...

You will need to create an account (free) with Open Library or the Internet Archive.

Thanks for all the nominations so far - it's another really intriguing group of nominations


The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster (Nigeyb)
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor (Susan)
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac (Roman Clodia)
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans (Hester)
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous (Ben)


Who else is nominating?

Ben wrote: "https://archive.org/search?query=woma...

You will need to create an account (free) with Open Library or the Internet Archive."

Thanks a lot and I have one. Such a wonderful, wonderful site and they want to close it!

Yes, it would be such a loss if it were closed.

I have been following the legal case closely. At the moment the site is operating based on a protocol agreed upon by the two sides and approved by the trial court. The only books currently removed from the site are those for which commercial ebooks are readily available. Others, like Hester's nomination and mine, which have not been published as ebooks, continue to be lawfully available.

Both sides have appealed the trial court decision, which was mostly favourable to the publishers, and the hearing has taken place. We are now waiting for the appellate court to issue its decision.

Anything might happen. The court might limit the operation of the Internet Archive even further, or it might reverse the trial court and decide the Internet Library is simply doing what any library of physical books has always done.

Ben, thank you for your comment on this issue. I have found several books here that I was unable to find anywhere else. I would happily donate to keep resources providing legal ebooks functioning. I shudder to think of all the books that have fallen into a black hole and are no longer available.

Hopefully these orphaned, out-of-print books that aren't otherwise available will continue to be accessible on the site, so long as someone with a physical copy has donated them to the archive to be scanned.

But there's no way to know what the appellate court will do in the name of protecting copyrights.

I make contributions to the site every so often. It's a small price to pay for an invaluable resource.

True.

I am with both of you. I cannot imagine a world without IA considering how valuable a resource it is. And I am not even interested in borrowing new books. It is those obscure books that I am keen upon. I do try to do my bit by donating during their Christmas/ New Year drive.

Last call for nominations


The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster (Nigeyb)
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor (Susan)
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac (Roman Clodia)
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans (Hester)
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous (Ben)


I'll get a poll up in about 24 hours

I forgot to come back. Hope I'm not too late.

How about Bedelia by Vera Caspary? She was the author of Laura, which I believe we read.

Here, Charlie Horst has returned to his family home in Connecticut with his bride Bedlia. She's gorgeous and complacent. She's also a gracious and ideal party host. In public, she plays the part of the dutiful wife. In private, even more so. Who can blame Charlie for overlooking her little deceptions? Or for not paying any mind to her contradictory statements about her past? When Charlie falls ill due to a freak poisoning, Charlie knows that Bedelia will be right by his side, watching him closely. But who's watching Bedelia?

Anyway, that's my nomination - if I'm not too late!

You’re in time Jan


Thanks. Looks good

I liked Caspary's Laura a lot - she takes on a lot of the masculinised tropes of noir.

It's time to vote....


https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...



Nominations....

The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster (Nigeyb)
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor (Susan)
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac (Roman Clodia)
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans (Hester)
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous (Ben)
Bedelia by Vera Caspary (Jan)

Poll watch....



The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster - 5 votes, 41.7%
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor - 2 votes, 16.7%
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous - 2 votes, 16.7%
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac - 1 vote, 8.3%
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans - 1 vote, 8.3%
Bedelia by Vera Caspary - 1 vote, 8.3%

So many great nominations, as always. The comments and descriptions are an extra bonus for me.

Um, those vote numbers are not what I'm seeing on the poll...

It's just a snapshot RC


Some vote switching/new votes have happened in the interim

Poll watch (as at 3:30 pm BST)....



The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster - 6 votes, 42.9%
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous - 4 votes, 28.6%
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor - 2 votes, 14.3%
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans - 1 vote, 8.37.1%
Bedelia by Vera Caspary - 1 vote, 7.1%
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac - 0 votes, 0.0%


https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...

Nigeyb wrote: "It's just a snapshot RC


Some vote switching/new votes have happened in the interim"

Oh yes, sorry, wasn't intending to be critical just wondered if there was a bug in GR as I posted within about 10 mins of your numbers and I was seeing something quite different at that time, in line with your later post. I'm certainly guilty of changing my vote, as usual!

No worries RC


I think my post inspired people to vote or change vote so a fast moving picture after the initial post


Current situation....

The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster - 7 votes, 46.7%
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous - 4 votes, 26.7%
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor - 2 votes, 13.3%
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans - 1 vote, 6.7.1%
Bedelia by Vera Caspary - 1 vote, 6.7%
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac - 0 votes, 0.0%

Thanks to everyone who got involved


We have a winner

I'll get the admin done later



Final results.....


The New York Trilogy (1987) by Paul Auster - 7 votes, 46.7%
A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous - 5 votes, 33.3%
Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor by William Trevor - 2 votes, 13.3%
Nothing to Pay by Caradoc Evans - 1 vote, 6.7.1%
Bedelia by Vera Caspary - 0 votes, 0.0%
Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac - 0 votes, 0.0%

Can I drum up interest in A Woman in Berlin as a Buddy Read?

Ben wrote:


"Can I drum up interest in A Woman in Berlin as a Buddy Read?"

As it got five votes Ben I'd guess there will be some enthusiasm for your suggestion. I'm tempted but will have to see how the land lies when the time comes. I'm wary of overcommitting but it does look like a book I'd appreciate

I'm tempted too but have committed to a lot of books coming up...

Ben wrote: "Can I drum up interest in A Woman in Berlin as a Buddy Read?"

Ben, I am interested but not before November.

I would be very tempted to read this November or after.

Possibly. Don't think I'd be interested in the New York Trilogy, although discussion might persuade me.

Fantastic!

Would a mod please set this up as a November Buddy Read? I'm away in October so it will be mid-month for me.

Ben wrote: "Can I drum up interest in A Woman in Berlin as a Buddy Read?"

I read this a while ago and remember it being gripping/illuminating. Is it still technically anonymous? That was one of the things that made me uneasy about it, not being able to verify the material.

I'll set up the thread now.